Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show 2013

I thoroughly enjoyed this year's quilt show in Sisters.  The weather was perfect (not as hot as it usually is) and all the quilts I wanted to see were close together, within 2-3 blocks of where I was staying.  Where was that?  Just two blocks from the Stitchin' Post!  My son's girlfriend, Brandi, offered her apartment, so my daughter and I stayed there for two nights.  The 2nd night, Brandi went out of town to visit a friend, and since she needed someone to bunny-sit her rabbit, E.B., we were able to do that for her.  But I digress . . .

I met Fiberexplorations friends Torrie and Deb on Sat. morning and we started the show with a special exhibit from the Portland book and quilt group, Cover to Cover.  Their theme this year was from the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret.  Here are three of those quilts:

"Connectivity" by Dianne Kane, Camas WA.

I'm glad I caught Dianne's quilt in the morning with the sun coming through it.  Isn't that beautiful?
And the next one features circular motifs attached together with real gears.
[9/16/13 UPDATE:  Thanks to Dianne Kane for providing more info on these three quilts!]

"Suspended in Time" by Dianne Kane, Camas WA.

And one of my favorite quilts from the show . . .

by Judith Phelps, Battle Ground WA

You may have missed why the above quilt is so spectacular.  Go back and click on it a few times to enlarge it.  Do you see it now?  All of the scenes are ENTIRELY thread-painted!  No markers, pens, pencils, paints, dyes, etc. were used, not even on the shading.  It's done entirely with threads ranging from white, plus many shades of gray, to black.  Simply amazing!

Next, in the outdoor courtyard/deli of Clearwater Gallery, we saw quilts made by students of Jean Wells, using her improvisational style of quiltmaking, inlcuding pieces from two Fiberexplorations' members:

"Under the Canopy of Autumn" by Deb Sorem.

and this one by Erika Close (title to be added).

At that time of the morning, a layer of shadows fell across these quilts from the trellis above.  When I returned later in the afternoon to re-photograph them,  the sun was behind the fence they were hung on, putting them in complete shade.  Oh well, just IMAGINE that their colors were more vibrant!  For example, here's a detail shot of Erika's taken in the morning, in a section where the trellis shadow didn't fall:

Detail of Erika's quilt.

On the other side of Clearwater Gallery, just after we ran into Erika, we found our Fiberexplorations' challenge quilt. 

Fiberexplorations "Painted Canvas" challenge quilt (with morning shadows!)

The four of us posed  for a photo, not realizing that we stood in the same order as our quilts, all four of which just happened to be in the middle row!

L to R: Torrie, Joanna (me), and Erika, Deb

The quilt show organizers thoughtfully arranged another quilt by Deb to hang next to our group's challenge quilt.  As Deb explained previously, "I took my granddaughters' names and worked them into kaleidoscopes. The traditional Grandmother's Flower Garden pattern was a favorite of mine, and my mother made one for me as a wedding present.  I repeated the shape of the hexagons in this contemporary version."

"Grandmother's Secret Flower Garden" by Deb Sorem.

To see it in more detail, click on this link for the Dec. 2, 2012 post about this quilt.

Thanks for visiting!  Comments are ALWAYS appreciated.

4th of July: Sparkly Stuff!

In honor of today's holiday, I'd like to share my latest experiments with the Gelli print pad (i.e. the modern twist on homemade gelatin plates for monoprinting).  The Gelli website & blog  http://www.gelliarts.com/ continue to add tutorials showing new ways to use their product, and this one was taken from their blog post, Gelli Transfer Prints, and Gilding the Gelli.

I didn't have cold laminating film on hand, so I used cheap-o packing tape to get this result:

The finished product (on packing tape).

Detail shot. (Click to enlarge; that's where it
looks the best and you see the transparency!)

Another detail.

And another . . .

And a final one.

I have a few ideas percolating for this.  What do YOU think?

More on the Painted Canvas Challenge

I wanted to add more photos of our latest challenge since all of our quilts have been (temporarily) stitched into one larger, 72" x 72" quilt.  As a group, we played with the arrangement of the quilts until we had a cohesive, balanced design:

The finished product!

The makers of each, from left to right, are:
Row 1:  Maya, Chris, Kathleen, Nancy
Row 2:  Torrie, Joanna, Erika, Deb
Row 3:  Maureen, Patty, Lisa, Caithlin

Here are a few of the individual quilts.  (I'll add the others in another post.)

Caithlin's

I love how Maureen's (left) flows into Patty's (right)

Lisa's

Patty's (detail)

Maya's (detail)

 I hope you enjoyed these, and please remember:  comments are ALWAYS appreciated!

Bright, clear colors!

After my last post, Pastels, I thought I should reinvigorate things with a shot of bright, clear color!

Inspired yet?

Pastels

My garden is flush this year with an abundance of delicate columbine.  Perched atop tall, slender stems, their blossoms range from the lightest, palest blush of pinky-lavender . . .

 to blues . . .

and purples . . .

They remind me of a beautiful vintage quilt that came into my possession about 10 years ago.  From a distance it's beautiful,

but on closer inspection, some of the fabrics are quite damaged.

It's a shame, really, and it's too extensive of a repair job for me to undertake, so I wondered how else I could use this quilt.

Every bit of it is hand-pieced, as well as hand-quilted, as you can see from the tiny, even stitches on the back.

After several days of working up the courage, I finally got out my best fabric scissors and began cutting from one edge of the quilt, while Baby supervised:

After I trimmed a bit, some sweet quilted stars emerged:

 

 And I knew exactly what to do with them!

QUICK! Enter to win thermofax screens!

Want to enter a drawing for some cool thermofax screens?  Hop over to Terri Stegmiller's blog  and enter the drawing -- QUICK -- before it ends tomorrow!

Terri Stegmiller's screenprinted samples.

Lucky girl, she was just gifted a thermofax machine and has been busy putting her own designs onto screens so that we can "borrow" some of her whimsical designs to use in our own creations!  Check them out on her etsy site, here.

They'd be so much fun to play with!

Unveiling the "Painted Canvas (AKA 'Name That Challenge') Challenge"

The Fiberexplorations group met earlier this month and everyone brought their quilts for the Painted Canvas Challenge.  Back in February, we got together and painted a large piece of canvas (cotton duck), which was later cut into a grid (4 across and 3 down). That's 12 sections, one for each member.

The challenge was for each of us to create a quilt, 18" x 24", that used at least 48 square inches of the painted canvas. Later, we'll temporarily stitch these 12 smaller quilts into one large 72" x 72" piece that can be entered into shows as a "group" quilt.

For the unveiling, we arranged our individual quilts on the floor, according to the original grid.  (For example, I had the piece of painted canvas from position #9 on the grid, so my quilt was placed in that position on the floor.)  One person missed the meeting, hence the "hole" in position #4.

The Painted Canvas Challenge

I'm always amazed at the wide range of design styles and the individual ways a challenge is interpreted, and this one was no exception!   In some of the quilts, the painted canvas pieces blend so well into the quilt's design that it requires closer inspection to find them.  We wondered if a viewer could figure out what the challenge was (or find the common theme) if we didn't provide that info.  With that in mind, I suggested that we rename this the "Name That Challenge" Challenge quilt.

Standing above these quilts in the fading light, I tried to photograph them, but wasn't very successful.  This shot of Chris' and Maureen's quilts was the only salvageable one:

On left: Chris's piece.  One right:  Maureen's piece.

Look for the "Name That Challenge" Challenge Quilt at this summer's Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show on Sat., July 13.

Progress on "Painted Canvas" Challenge

 We're unveiling our finished pieces for the "Painted Canvas" challenge at next Monday night's meeting.  It took me awhile to narrow down my design ideas, but I finally decided to base it on this sketch from my design journal: 
  

Challenge idea from my design journal.

When the top was finished, I needed to decide how to quilt it.  I had four ideas in mind, so I made this quick crayon sketch of the quilt . . .
 
 

 then auditioned each of the quilting designs (penciled onto tracing paper) over it:

Possible quilting lines, idea #4.

 I decided to go with my first idea, where the quilting lines curve in opposing directions:

Chosen plan for the quilting lines.

  Here's the finished top before it was quilted:

Quilt top, before quilting

 I plan to add LOTS of quilting lines in multiple colors, and hope it complements the happy feeling I already get from this quilt.

More student work and a last-minute contest

My previous post was about the classes I'm currently teaching.  Here are a few more shots from my April 7 soy wax batik class at Greenbaum's Quilted Forest:

White cloth stamped with soy wax.

One very ambitious student spent most of the class time stamping designs onto her fabric, but still managed to get them all dyed.  Do you see why I get so many ideas from my students?  Teaching is a two-way street!

Piles of soy wax-stamped fabric ready for dye-painting!

The next time I teach this class, I'll get some shots of the stamped and dyed fabrics.  This blog post needs some COLOR!

The piece of painted canvas I received for the current challenge.  Yes, I've started!

And on the subject of COLOR:


Win a set of Golden Artist  Colors' surfaces and textures for dry media from Interweave Press  -- a sampling of 13 products, including the new Micaceous Iron Oxide.  (Serendipity?? I just learned the word micaceous during last week's episode of Project Runway, when Patricia embellished a dress with micaceous sequins! Did anyone else see it?)
Deadline: midnight (CST) Thursday, April 25, 2013.

Comments are ALWAYS welcome and appreciated!